SWAZILAND NEEDS MORE MEDIA OUTLETS

It will be hard to create more media outlets in Swaziland, because the kingdom is too poor to support them.

That was one of the key findings from a meeting held to discuss media freedom in Swaziland.

The Weekend Observer reported (17 May 2008) that there had been some attempts to start new publications, but these had closed down after getting into financial difficulties and this denied people their freedom of choice.

The Weekend Observer was reporting on a meeting of media folk in Siteki held to commemorate World Press Freedom Day.

Participants noted that in Swaziland today there is not freedom of the media and one way to tackle this would be to have more media outlets. At the moment just about all broadcasting is state controlled and there are only two newspaper groups (one, the Observer, is in effect owned by King Mswati III; the other, the Times, is a private company).

The Weekend Observer reported, that independent publications such as Business Sunday and the sports paper Ligoli closed because of ‘financial challenges’.

It is true that such publications closed because they could not attract enough readers or companies that wanted to advertise in them.

This should come as no surprise, however, because Swaziland is a desperately poor country with about 70 per cent of the population of just under one million living in abject poverty. They have no money to buy newspapers and advertisers do not want to advertise to them because they have no money to spend.

Until the economy of the kingdom improves spectacularly that situation will not change.

Despite this obvious economic reality there are many media people in Swaziland who want to try to create more media outlets. According to the Weekend Observer, media professionals want financial institutions in Swaziland to help them launch new outlets.

They claim that people in Swaziland are crying out for a third newspaper to rival the Times and the Observer.

I don’t know where the evidence for this is. It’s true that there are a number of improvements that could be made to the existing newspapers, but that doesn’t mean that any new newspaper would be able to do any better. If you look at the Times and the Observer, for example, between 40 and 50 percent of their content is taken up with sport, leisure and entertainment. Would a new newspaper be any different? What would they put in its place?

Would a new newspaper not concentrate on reporting from the urban areas of Swaziland (as the existing newspapers do)? Would it report less about the king and the status quo, than the papers we already have? I think the answer to all the questions here is probably, ‘no’.

The Weekend Observer reported Comfort Mabuza, the national director of the Media Institute of Southern Africa - Swaziland chapter (MISA), saying there should be more pluralism and diversity in the media.

He said that aspiring media owners often were too optimistic about the amount of money they could get from advertising. He said they should get more training in business enterprise before they try to start up new ventures. Also, donor agencies might be approached to give start up money to help new media ventures.

He advised aspiring media entrepreneurs to contact the Southern Africa Institute for Media Entrepreneurship Development (SAIMED) in Botswana, which had been tasked by MISA with helping emerging media enterprises to set management controls, sales and marketing ‘and other innovating ways of sustaining media business’.

I am reminded that in June 2007 MISA Swaziland unveiled a report that suggested there could be sufficient advertising in the kingdom to support small local / community newspapers in Swaziland. As far as I know nothing further has been done on this project.

Personally, I support the demand for more media in Swaziland, but I doubt if there is much money around to support commercial print media. A much better way forward would be to set up small community radio stations in the kingdom. These could be owned and controlled by members of the community they serve.

If experiences across the world are anything to go by, these stations could be set up with very little cost. The United Nations Economic, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is always willing to meet the costs of studios and transmitters. The running costs of such stations would be low because they would be run and operated by members of the community, often acting as volunteers.

This is a simple way of introducing pluralism and diversity into media in Swaziland. I doubt if it will happen if history is anything to go by. Any attempts to set up community radio in Swaziland have been stalled by a government that says it is in support of such initiatives, but which fails to come up with the licences to let it happen.

No one who observes Swaziland would be in the least surprised by this. Broadcasting is strictly controlled by the state. Only ‘authorised’ voices are allowed on the airways and views that run contrary to the monarchy or the government’s are not allowed to be heard.

With such a control over what information people can receive why on earth would the ruling elite allow community radio to operate?

No, I’m afraid that even though Swaziland should have more voices, change will not come. Not until we have a proper democracy in the kingdom and its rulers can be held to account.

See also
A VOICE FOR THE VOICELESS
WHAT’S IN THE SWAZILAND PAPERS?